


Trust No One

by ChangeTheCircumstances



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: AU where Lynn Blake and Miles went to college together, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends, Explains what happened to Miles and what happened to Lynn, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, The Murkoff Account, Walrider Miles Upshur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-10-26 09:59:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeTheCircumstances/pseuds/ChangeTheCircumstances
Summary: When Lynn can feel her life slipping from her, can hear her husband's mad ramblings of something that isn't there, the last face she expects to see is one of an old friend.





	1. First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> A five part fic going into Lynn and Miles relationship and helping to explain the ending of Outlast 2. There also won't be anything to graphic in here but then, it's Outlast so I guess you know what to expect. Thanks for reading!

_Blake wasn’t making any sense. She needed him right now! Didn’t he understand that? She was in so much pain, bruises and cuts littering her body. Each step felt weaker, her vision wobbling. Was she bleeding out? Was it the exhaustion that was trying to take her? She couldn’t tell. She just needed to sit down. She just needed to rest, get as far away from this cursed place as she could, and she needed for Blake to stop talking about the **damn baby**!_

_What baby? What end of days? Locusts? Blood rain? She didn’t understand! For god’s sake she didn’t understand!_

_Finally there was a break, a shelter where she was able to lay down. She reached for her husband. She needed him, **oh god I need you Blake**! But there was no response as he cradled nothing but air._

_Her vision began to waver again, everything going in and out of focus. Was this the end? Was she dying? What—_

_And then she saw him, the familiar face, one of her best friends. But it was impossible! How could he be here and now? It was the loss of blood or the head injury or something. There was no way that he could be here now._

_And why the shadows? Why the shadows covering his face?_

* * *

 

Lynn let out a soft sigh as she gave her boyfriend a piercing look. “And you actually swear this is the last time?”

“I swear Lynn. I just…I need one last chance to say goodbye.”

She bit back the response she wanted to say but simply nodded, kissed Blake on the cheek, and said she looked forward to the breakfast they were planning tomorrow. She didn’t understand why he always had to go back on this day. Yes, it was a horrible thing that had happened to Jess and Lynn missed her as well. However, there was nothing to be done and it was unhealthy the way Blake didn’t seem to let it go. Hopefully he’d meant what he said and he’d finally put the whole thing behind him. After all, it wasn’t like her death had been his fault.

With another sigh, Lynn continued her walk from Blake’s apartment to the college they both attended. Usually they walked together but she’d forgotten what day it was so this time she walked alone.

The university was a major contrast to their earlier years at Catholic school and Lynn greatly enjoyed the freedom of having her own place and being introduced to so many new experiences. In her teen years she’d become less religious and no longer really went to church unless her parents pushed it though she would say she definitely still believed. Blake was a bit more serious about the whole thing, evident by the fact that he’d felt that dating for three years was still to soon to get an apartment together but Lynn certainly didn’t mind.

He was sweet and it was nice having someone who really wanted to take his time with things and wasn’t trying to be pushy. Besides, it let Lynn be her pushy self instead and by the end of the year she’d probably weasel him into finally getting an apartment together.

That little fantasy and all the other thoughts in her head kept her going until she finally got to her first class of the day and by far her favorite one. She was a sophomore now and finally was really beginning to get into the grit of her major, journalism.

Since it was still the first week of the spring semester though, she wasn’t surprised to see a few new faces, knowing it would probably be another week or two before the class became stable and she could actually reach out to those around her. This semester, and probably for the rest of her college career, she would no longer have Blake by her side and she’d need to start learning the people in her major. She and Blake had managed to get a lot of basic classes together but now he would be focusing on his own major in photography.

As the class started, Lynn was quick to write down notes and to pay attention as they were past the stereotypical first day spiel. That concentration was broken though as someone rather loudly fell into a chair beside her.

Checking her watch, twenty minutes had already passed and a quick glance to the rumpled student showed that he must have slept in. Though how, Lynn didn’t know seeing as it was already ten twenty.

Her eyes moved back to the teacher and the lecture though she found herself continually distracted by the noises from the student next to her. He kept moving his chair, the sound scraping across the room, yawning long and loud, and even brought out a god damn coke and chugged that, not bothering to try and even be discreet about it.

“Now for the first project of the semester I want you to pair up and write me a piece about bias in the media, trying to use a recent story as your main source. This project is meant to get everyone talking to each other so I would prefer it if you pair up with someone you haven’t talked to yet.”

When most of the room was met with silence, the teacher let out a sigh and then said, “Fine, I’ll pair you off then. But this class has some pretty extensive debates planned for it so you better get used to talking. Now…”

Lynn held her breath. God would she be this unlucky? No…no…no… _no_! Maybe she’d get lucky. Maybe he’d figure out he was in the wrong class. Maybe he’d drop out—

“I can’t believe it’s a fucking group project,” the guy groaned to himself. “But it’s not like I can just pack up and move ‘cause of one god damn group project. Oh…I guess I’m stuck with this Lynn person.”

The teacher had just said her name and…oh no _he_ was Miles Upshur! Why?!

He seemed to notice her staring then and asked, “So you’re Lynn?”

“And you’re Miles?”

“Yep. That’s me. I guess we should figure out a time to start working on this project together, huh? Warning you though, I usually don’t wake up until eleven. I barely even made it to this fucking class.”

Lynn bit back a groan of her own and avoided the temptation of slamming her head on the desk. She was really trying to live by that whole ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ logic but it was really hard what with the exterior she’d just been shown.

And damn it all, it turned out the project wasn’t going to prove her wrong! Lynn found herself suffering through the first project of the semester as Miles again and again fell asleep and didn’t show up or forgot to do his own research and so on and he was even in another one of her classes. She found that most of her conversations with Blake were even ruined as she found herself unable to keep from complaining about Miles and how she couldn’t believe she was stuck with him and he was in her class and he was even a god damn journalist major too though she didn’t understand how!

She usually wasn’t so melodramatic but she decided that if there was such a thing as a nemesis then he was hers. At the very least she figured he’d drop out due to his work ethic and then she wouldn’t be bothered by him. At least she’d thought that until the results came back for a competition that the teacher had required everyone to enter halfway through the spring semester.

Seeing that she had made second place had felt good at first. Second place wasn’t bad and she even got fifty dollars for it. Nice.

At least that’s what she’d thought until she saw who had gotten first. Out of everyone in their class, how the hell was it that Miles Upshur had beat her?!


	2. Similar Trains of Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to those reading this! Hope you enjoy :)

_Her vision wavered for a bit. She saw a man, large and fat, rambling about the same child that didn’t exist. She watched him slice his own throat. If there had been anything in her stomach, she would have thrown up. But she was so tired, so weak. She was fading. Blake, she needed Blake…_

_Turning away from the fat man, her eyes fell on her husband. He had stood up, still cradling nothing. She could hear him rambling, words flowing between a mass of realities, all of which she couldn’t see. She heard Jess’ name slip between his lips, her name, mentions of a child and the end of days and Father Knots. She understood none of it._

_And beside him…_

_Was she still seeing things? Still hallucinating? She watched her best friend standing in front of Blake, blackness dripping for him and eyes-bright like the Sun-breaking through the haze of her vision. For the moment, he wasn’t looking at her, just Blake. Blackness fell from his yellow eyes. Not light and airy but heavy and wet._

_Tears…so many tears._

* * *

 

The top three entrees for the contest ended up getting published so Lynn had a chance to read Miles’. She was shocked to find that it truly did deserve first place and with that, opened up a new side to Miles that Lynn hadn’t seen during the required project.

It wasn’t like in the movies where he never worked and somehow always beat her and it wasn’t like they were always the top people with her being just behind him every time. However, now that Lynn had seen his writing skill at its best, she started to notice things she hadn’t before. He still seemed to fall asleep a lot in class and didn’t take notes but she began to see his presences at the library occasionally (half the time he was asleep but it was still something). And it wasn’t so much that he didn’t do his work. It was just that he seemed to choose what not to work on. Smaller projects he completely abandoned while he seemed to work incredibly hard for finals and major papers. It was a confusing pattern that followed through the summer semester (apparently Miles had chosen to take classes too) and even through the fall.

However, it wasn’t until sometime in November that Lynn finally came to understand Miles’ peculiarities.

They were supposed to be writing a piece on some recent event in town and most had gone to the mayor’s speech or the adoption event downtown. Lynn wanted something a bit more interesting however as she found plans to gentrify an older area of town. She went about getting interviews from people and finding out a great deal of their plight and how they had fought the city and yet loss. She quickly went about researching what she could to try and figure out if anything could be done for the people. It led to long nights in the university’s library in rather specific areas. Areas where Miles Upshur strangely was.

The guy didn’t seem to understand personal space so Lynn wasn’t to surprised to find him peaking over her shoulder one night but she was surprised when she heard him say, “Oh, you’re looking into the east end too.”

She couldn’t help but spin around at that, both shocked to find someone else had the same idea and a bit peeved that out of everyone, it was Miles. “Oh, so you’ve decided to work on this project unlike the other ones?”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I? It’s like worth half of our grade,” he muttered with a frown.

Lynn wanted to ask. Wanted to try and understand why the hell he was the way he was, but he’d already slunk back to his corner. With a frown, she turned to her own work but found her eyes gravitating towards him through the rest of the night. When it became clear he hadn’t turned a single page yet seemed to be trying to concentrate, she couldn’t help but walk over. As annoying and confusing as he was, he looked to be struggling and she couldn’t stop that instilled feeling to want to help.

“Hey, anything I can do?” she asked after walking over.

Miles shot her a slightly confused and suspicious look. “Why?”

It was just one word but Lynn was rather tired and already on a thin rope with him. “You want to know why?” she asked, trying to keep her voice down. “Because I’m trying to be a good person and trying to find some good in you! After all, you’re a damn good writer but you’re an awful fucking partner and you’re always slacking off and getting on my nerves!”

She hadn’t quite expected all that to come out but now that it had, she fully expected Miles to get offended and either leave or yell at her to go. Instead he…laughed?

“That’s a weird fucking way to offer up help,” he said. “And for the record, sorry about being a shit partner on that one assignment. I should have been upfront and just said I wasn’t going to do the damn thing.”

“That…doesn’t really sound like an apology,” Lynn muttered.

“I guess it isn’t,” sighed Miles with a role of his eyes. “It just wasn’t a huge grade so I just dropped it.”

“Why not just do everything? You’d have a better grade.”

“Fuck, I know that,” snorted Miles. “I just don’t have the time. Work nights to pay for classes and even then I’ve got a fuckton of loans.”

Alright…so that helped to explain why he was always falling sleep. Now she felt a little bad for yelling at him. “Sorry that uh…really sucks.”

“Hey, it’s whatever. Besides, I know my personality can be a bit to much at times.”

Now it was Lynn’s time to snort. “That’s an understatement.”

Miles grinned before motioning back to her books. “So you decided the mayor’s speech was to fucking dull too huh?”

“Yeah I mean…I get why a bunch of students are going for that but I want my work to matter. You know? Not just be an account of some politician that a hundred others have already written about.”

“So you’re going more for investigative journalism, huh?” questioned Miles, his eyes lighting up. “Me too! I want to do crazy shit like helping to expose drug cells and purposefully making myself seem insane to expose corrupt asylums and stuff.”

“Same here! You going more towards freelance?”

He nodded. “There isn’t much money in it and I may have to end up writing for a paper or something but I really just want to get out there and do my own thing.”

Lynn nodded, at first just thinking of the fact that she was really connecting with someone in her major. Then it hit her, she was connecting with Miles! Unable to help the shyness that blossomed up she added, “Uh…I really do need to apologize now. I had you in the completely wrong box.”

“Oh god, don’t tell me you thought I was straight.”

She snorted. Whether he meant it or not didn’t matter. A few years ago she might have just gaped but now she couldn’t help but smirk. “No, just that you were a complete butt. Which you may still be, though at least you’re interesting now.”

As Miles mimicked her smile she added, “Do you need help? Sorry if that was presumptuous. It just looked like you were struggling.”

“Oh, yeah I have dyslexia,” he sighed. “Makes reading pretty hard and notes mostly pointless. I’m trying to go over this court case of gentrification that happened a few years ago here but my brains just not playing along today.”

“What if I read it to you?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Maybe it’ll include something useful for me too,” Lynn replied.

And that was how Lynn found herself actually talking to Miles rather than glaring at him from across the room. Even though it wasn’t meant to be a group thing, they ended up finishing the project together and managed to get an ‘A’ thanks to how in depth they’d gone. It even got published in the local newspaper! A huge plus.

From there, Lynn found herself hanging out with Miles more and even introduced him to Blake after she gave Miles the idea of recording lectures since reading was a bit harder. Blake clearly thought that after giving some advice on cameras and what not, that would be it but then Miles kept showing up.

Blake was his awkward self around Miles but surprisingly warmed up to him, even his horrendous habit of cussing. After a while, Lynn was shocked to find that he’d actually become her friend and she found herself planning out classes just to make sure they were in the same ones as often as possible.

They helped each other with their papers, spent nights and nights studying, and even broke into a few places together over the years to get a story (even successfully dragging Blake along too).

Though their careers did take a slightly different turn after college, they stayed in touch plenty and Lynn could proudly say that Miles was one of her closest friends. So of course she’d invite him to the wedding.


	3. Wedding Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for those reading this!

_She watched as words slipped through his mouth. It looked like goodbye. Why was he telling Blake goodbye?_

_He moved aside then and Blake continued on and through the church. She desperately reached for him, moaned for him to come back, but he didn’t even turn around. Her eyes moved back to him, watched him come closer, his form more tangible. She could hear noises outside, something like helicopters maybe, or low flying planes? She couldn’t tell. All she could hear was the continued sound of wind whipping through blades as the noise grew and grew._

_He was right in front of her now. Kneeling down, he spoke with a voice she hadn’t heard in months._

_“I’m sorry Lynn. I’m so sorry but this is going to hurt so much.”_

_He gripped her arm and she desperately wished she could let out a scream then but she just didn’t have the energy. A low moan fell from her mouth instead as she felt him grab her and pull her forward._

* * *

 

Lynn could recall the uproar at having a man of honor instead of the traditional maid of honor. Her parents had come around but even on the wedding day some of the older relatives were a bit livid. Not that she really cared. She was getting married to her best friend, to her boyfriend of so many years, and she wasn’t going to do this without her other best friend on her side.

Blake’s older brother ended up being his best man, something which the brother was a bit less jovial about when he finally met Miles. Lynn had kept reminding him that the brother was already married and very much straight while Miles had simply replied, “I'm just trying to be traditional. The best man and maid of honor always sleep together right?”

But despite those little hiccups and Miles silliness, he took his job as man of honor very seriously and Lynn could honestly say she would remember her wedding day forever. It was perfect, every little detail and she had never been happier.

She was at the reception now and Blake’s brother had just given his best man speech meaning it was time for Miles…

“I know this is all pretty untraditional for you all and your pretty damn big on tradition,” it had taken ages to convince him that no, he couldn’t say phrases like ‘fucking fantastic’ during the speech, and he’d tuned it all down to ‘damn’, “and I know some of your minds are probably going into some dark gutters right now since she wanted me and not some girlfriend here, but don’t worry. I’m gay as hell!”

Blake muffled a groan as he went red and Lynn had to very quickly stifle a laugh as she patted her husband’s hand. It was very hard not to laugh over the faces of the more conservative relatives and friends but she focused back on Miles speech and when she did, she couldn’t help her eyes from welling up. Even with all the jokes, it was incredibly heartfelt, particularly the end.

“And I mean, let’s be honest. My life probably wouldn’t have changed if I’d never become friends with Lynn or even met her. I would have still struggled through college, still would have become an investigative journalist. Still would cuss a lot and say bad jokes. None of that’s really changed. And yet, if my life was different, if I hadn’t met Lynn, I just…it’s somehow still…it’s still such a darker future and I wouldn’t…she’s my best friend and just…fuck who would have known? Me getting emotional?”

Lynn didn’t even yell at him for dropping the f-bomb. She just stood up and grabbed hold of him, hugging him tight.

“I’m so happy for you.”

And after that tearful moment, they continued on with the dinner and then the dance came. Lynn knew that after the traditional dances Blake would want to step to the side, not really the one for putting himself out there. Lynn didn’t mind, only to happy to spend time with her new husband. However, after the father daughter dance and mother son dance and theirs, Miles pulled Blake back into the mix.

“Oh no, we’re going to have some fun Blake!”

“I am not a dancer!” he protested though even he couldn’t help but laugh at Miles' large grin.

“Come on Lynn. Let’s have some proper fun before Blake decides to be a bore and hang on the edge of the crowd,” laughed Miles.

Lynn grinned, only to happy to oblige as she watched Miles spin Blake around. She laughed as the three of them danced together, Miles giving Blake pointers along the way and only occasionally yelling at him for stepping on his foot.

Yes, Lynn would always hold her wedding day close to her chest as one of the happiest memories of her life. And yet the date would carry so much more significance in years to come.


	4. After Mount Massive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies but here comes the angst! This takes place after Outlast and the DLC and the next chapter will take place after the sequel and hopefully will help explain what the hell went on in that game haha. Thanks for reading!

_All she could do was moan as every part of him seemed to burn her skin. She blinked and suddenly the church was gone. They were outside, the sun was shining, and over head were several helicopters. They were large, militaristic looking things but no army name or image was displayed on them. Just a name. A name that had haunted her dreams for months._

_Murkoff._

_Her eyes moved away from them and out in the distance she could see a figure. With the exhaustion setting in again and the distance between them, she couldn’t make a definite id and yet she just knew._

_Blake. Why was he so far away? She wanted to yell at him. Blake come back! Come back to me!_

_But she just heard those words again instead. “I’m so sorry.”_

_And then they were moving. So fast, to fast. It couldn’t be possible. And she could just barely see behind them. See that cursed church and town growing smaller and smaller as explosions lit up the sky. She wanted to scream, to cry. Oh god Blake! He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be dead!_

_Yet the next thing she knew, she was waking up in an unfamiliar bed, and unfamiliar room. She looked for Blake. She expected to see him. Instead she got something else and her broken voice fell from her lips._

_“Mr. Park?”_

* * *

 

After college, after the wedding, Lynn and Miles did do their own thing but it didn’t mean they were against working together on occasion. Miles stayed more freelance while Lynn got an actual job but they both used their connections to help the other all the time and still went on some pretty crazy adventures, always dragging a somewhat reluctant Blake along.

Her favorite memory of the three of them still remained her wedding day though. The silliness, the laughter. Even if they hadn’t had pictures and video of it, every smile, every sparkling eye would have been ingrained in Lynn’s mind. But in more recent times, the date of her wedding had come to mean something completely different. It was the only date that Miles wouldn’t have called her to go on some insane tip. Her anniversary was the only time he wouldn’t have bothered her other than a ‘congrats’ text message.

And that was all she’d gotten.

And then Miles was gone. Disappeared. Missing. Presumed dead.

She’d gone to his apartment two days later when the news about Murkoff and Mount Massive had dropped. Miles had come to her a few times talking about it, asking for help. But not that day. He hadn’t asked for help on that day and now…

Now what? If he had asked, she would have gone no matter the day. It was why he’d never asked on hers and Blake’s anniversary because despite it, her and Miles knew she wouldn’t have been able to say no to an interesting story. But if he had called and Lynn had said yes and Blake had gone with…then what? Maybe Miles wouldn’t be missing. Or maybe not only him but herself and Blake would all be presumed-confirmed!-dead. Or maybe he’d be alive and fine. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to find him.

Her first stop was the whistleblower, the one who had blown a lid on Murkoff. She’d been forced to call in so many favors but it had been worth it to finally get in contact with Waylon Park. At least she’d thought so.

But not long after getting in contact with Mr. Park, then all sorts of things started to pop up making him seem like some conspiracy nut and utterly ripping apart his claims. Again, Lynn pulled favors and worked hard with Blake to try and prove the websites and posts were fake but before they could, Mr. Park disappeared. Him, his family, just gone and the house burned to the ground.

At the same time, the stuff about Murkoff slowly began to disappear. The men and women in suits, the lawyers and bankers, they started to sweep up the mess and there was nothing Lynn or Blake could do. To many frustrated nights were spent yelling at each other, forcing them to tears. Sometimes Lynn would break first but more often it was Blake.

And she was at Miles’ apartment so often. It sometimes felt like she was there more than her own home, just searching for anything.

Over the years, they had been placed into precarious situations before. She remembered not long after college the one time the three of them had been working together and Blake had fallen and broken his leg. That had given her quite a scare. But still, nothing ever like this had happened. No one had just disappeared.

Then she left Miles’ apartment. It was only momentarily and yet upon coming back it was up in flames with only a black car driving away.

All gone.

Every photo.

Every book.

The ratty bed.

The cameras.

It was all gone. Ash. And all Lynn could do was cry. Fall to her knees and sob as the sirens were heard in the distance.

But despite everything, she couldn’t look for Miles forever. Blake helped her to understand that. They had bills, a home. They needed to pay for food. Part of Lynn had slowly started to no longer care about that. About her actual job. Miles wasn’t just her friend! He was their friend and he deserved more than just ‘presumed dead’. Lynn would give anything and everything to find him by now and she expected Blake to as well. But Blake disagreed. He was just more practical, more logical. He kept saying things like, “Miles wouldn’t ever want you to do this. To destroy your life over him.”

Maybe Blake was right. He certainly did a good enough job convincing her. Yet Miles stayed in the back of her mind as guilt wracked her. It stayed with her when they found the girl and began trying to figure where she could have possibly come from. It came full force when Blake let go and all she could think of was, “I’m sorry I couldn’t find the truth Miles. I’m sorry.”

And when she was stuck in that church again, in pain and unable to push herself up while begging for her husband, she saw that impossible face covered in shadows.


	5. Continuing the Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the break between this chapter and the last. Hopefully you enjoy this though and I hope you enjoyed reading this. I left it really opened ended because (I hope) that the games will continue to explain what's going on and I just really wanted to focus on a possible Lynn/Miles friendship and what that could mean for the series as a whole.
> 
> Also, Simon Peacock and any references you may not get were taken from the comics which you can find for free on the redbarrels sight. They're really good and help to not only tie the first game/dlc with the second but also helps to answer some key questions.
> 
> Thank you again for reading and I hope you enjoy :)

Lynn woke up with her body stiff and stinging in pain. All that left her mind though as she spotted Waylon Park sitting by her bedside. He looked worse. Not as bad as his picture immediately after getting away from Mount Massive but still pretty bad.

“Mr. Park?”

“Hey Mrs. Langermann,” Waylon murmured. He sounded so tired and sad. Yet there was still fight in his eyes. The same fight that had led him to leak the information on Murkoff. “You’ve been out for about three days now.”

Lynn knew that there were some obvious questions she’d be expected to ask then. Things like her condition and needing to know what had happened and all that yet she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she distanced herself. She said, “I thought you were dead.”

“That was the idea.” She could see more pain blossom up at the mention of his home. “Now you’re in—”

“Your family?”

“Gone.”

“They didn’t—”

“No. I started the fire,” replied Waylon. “It was the only way to get away from Murkoff but…it’s just safer this way.”

After the horrors she had witnessed, knowing that Waylon’s two kids were alive and well was nearly enough to send Lynn into tears. However, she fought against them as she had to come and accept her own story and what had happened. She knew what had happened to Waylon now, at least the bare minimum, so she started with a simpler question. “Where are we?”

“A safe house in Canada.”

“And are we alone?”

“The Walri-or well…Billy or I guess more so Miles Upshur is here.  And uh…Simon Peacock. I don’t expect you to know that name though. I certainly didn’t. He’s been involved since the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“Of taking down Murkoff,” Waylon replied. “I won’t explain to much now. You need to rest but basically I was given the choice of running with my family or helping him. I…I almost left. Some days I still wished I had. But people are still being hurt, still dying like….well anyways. You should get some rest. Just call out if you need anything. The house isn’t exactly big.”

Waylon started to walk off but Lynn’s hand shot out before he could leave. “Park I…”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s all Lynn needed to hear and yet she couldn’t bring herself to cry, not even when Waylon slipped out of her hand and she was suddenly alone again. She just sat, numb to the world.

Time passed slowly as she eventually went to examine her wounds. Most made since but several distinct burns made her think back to Miles and how much it had hurt for him to touch her.

Later from both Waylon and Simon, she’d figure out why. Lynn discovered that the Walrider and the Morphogenic Engine were one in the same. Only the patient Billy had been a success and then Miles after the Walrider had possessed him. Billy existed more as an echo seeing as his physical form was gone whereas Miles now had more control in guiding the Walrider. He couldn’t stop the urge to kill, couldn’t destroy the madness, but at least he could direct the hell that Murkoff had made right back at itself.

Simon had experienced his own share of pain and mutation and both his woes and Miles’ had very little information on how to cure them or at least ease the symptoms. It seemed a cure might never be possible, both now fully devoted to stopping Murkoff.

Lynn found out that the signals that had messed up everyone’s heads, signals that she had been mostly spared thanks to being in the mines, had been a recreation of the Morphogenic Engine, though why they didn’t know yet. That was the biggest issue. No one quite knew the why. In fact, they still didn’t know if the Walrider had been their true intention at Murkoff. What had they wanted to create and most importantly, why?

Some of the information Lynn believed far quicker than the rest. What she couldn’t bring herself to believe, what she thought fantasy, was soon made a reality though when she finally met with Miles again.

She acted immediately, regardless of the fact that his mere touch seemed to burn her. He even tried to reign it in but every wisp and puff of smoke burned.

“He was already gone Lynn! He was gone!” Miles finally cried out, his first words to her since saving her and not saving…not saving Blake.

Even then, Lynn didn’t cry. There was no use now. She’d missed the time of mourning. Now she just needed action. It was why she had stuck around rather than running like Wayon’s family. She still asked though. “Why was he gone? Why was he un-savable?”

“The damage to his brain was to great! There was nothing of him left! Nothing really! He was gone and I couldn’t save him, ok?! I couldn’t save him!”

And then Miles was crying instead, tears of black that Lynn couldn’t even touch.

“I couldn’t save Blake,” Miles got out, his throat shaking. “I thought…I thought that I could do this. That I was untouchable after the hell Murkoff put me through but then…somehow they managed to ruin the two best things that ever happened to me.”

Lynn’s eyes widened in understanding. “You want me to leave. How can you ask that?!”

“Because you’ll be killed! Or worse you’ll end up looking like me or Simon!”

“And Mr. Park? Did you try to get him to leave? What of his wife and kids?”

“He’s here to protect his wife and kids.”

“And you don’t think there’s nothing here for me left to protect?”

Miles shook his head hard as he took a step back. “I’m dying Lynn. There isn’t anything left for me after all this ends. Once we find out what Murkoff is really doing, once we put them to an end, there’s no future for me.”

After all that had happened, his words didn’t pain Lynn as much as they would have. Instead she shot back, “Maybe so, but someone needs to watch your reckless back to make sure you get to that end whether you like it or not. Even with the Walrider currently on your side.”

“Lynn I can’t—”

“Blake is dead,” she interrupted. “He’s gone and all I can do now is make sure the story that killed him doesn’t stay buried. That one day he can have a god damn obituary page and a funeral not filled with missing pieces. I’ve already talked with Simon and I’m heading back to the factory. It didn’t get destroyed in the explosions meaning Murkoff must have further use for it, at least for a time.”

She grabbed his hand then, even though it burned and hurt. She squeezed hard, a comfort, a promise, a threat all in one. “I will make sure the heads of Murkoff never have another restful night for the rest of their lives, by myself if I have to. But I will ask now. Will you help me Miles?”

The moment that passed was long. Possibly to long as Lynn’s hand burned while in contact with Miles’. Finally he squeezed back though and wiped away the black tears. “Yes,” he replied.


End file.
